Using Shopify Payments

Shopify Payments is the simplest way to accept payments online. It eliminates the hassle of setting up a third-party payment gateway, and merchant account, then entering the credentials into Shopify. Shopify Payments comes fully integrated with your store and includes a wide variety of functions that let you manage your entire business and financials in one place.

Note

Shopify Payments is available only to stores in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia. It is not available to US territories except Puerto Rico.

Pay periods

Your pay period refers to the amount of time between the day a customer places an order on your store, and the day the funds from that order are sent to your bank account.

Note

The funds might not appear in your bank account immediately after they're sent. Banks typically take between 24-72 hours to process deposits to your bank account.

The length of your pay period depends on the country your store is based in.

United States and Australia

There is a delay of 3 calendar days between the date that an order is paid and the date that the money is deposited into your bank account.

United Kingdom and Ireland

There is a delay of 4 business days between the date that an order is paid and the date that the money is deposited into your bank account.

Note

If you're in the United Kingdom or Ireland, then you will now see "Earthport PLC Shopify" on your bank statement when the money is deposited into your bank account, instead of "Shopify".

Canada

There is a delay of 7 calendar days between the date that an order is paid and the date that the money is deposited into your bank account.

View your payouts

The payout schedule shows you your upcoming payouts. The All payouts section has a list of all your payouts. Payouts marked as Pending are for sales that you've made, but that haven't been sent to your bank account yet. Payouts marked as Paid have already been sent to your bank account.

From this page, you can also view the details of any specific payout.

View a specific payout

There are two ways to see the details of a specific payout:

In the payout schedule, click the amount of the payout:

In the All payouts section, click the date of the payout:

After you click either link, you'll see the page for the payout you chose:

The Overview section shows the total amount of the payout, as well as a breakdown of the charges, refunds, and adjustments. The Transactions section shows the details of each transaction included in the payout.

Failed payouts

Sometimes a payout will fail. Usually this is because there is an issue with the bank account that you have on file. Until the issue with your bank account is resolved, there will be a hold placed on all your pending payouts.

After you resolve the issue or update your bank account details to a valid checking account, you will receive the funds from the failed payout in your next scheduled payout.

If you are unsure why the payout failed, you should reach out to your bank to investigate the issue.

Error messages and notifications

When a payout fails, you will receive an email. You will also get a notification on the home page in the Shopify admin:

You can click the View failed payout button to go to the page for that payout. On that page there will be an error message that explains why the payout failed, and what you can do to resolve the issue:

Depending on the issue that caused the payout to fail, you might see a link you can click to update your bank account details.

Some error messages will suggest that you contact your bank to resolve the issue, then retry the payout. After the issue is resolved, you can click the Retry payout button. If you retry the payout before the issue is resolved, the payout will fail again.

The pricing for Shopify Payments is all inclusive. There are no monthly fees, no hidden fees, and no setup fees beyond the regular subscription fees for your store's Shopify plan. There are no additional charges to accept American Express or international orders. When you're using Shopify Payments as your processor, any other subscription transaction fees are waived, putting money back in your wallet.

If you decide to change your plan at any time, your Shopify Payments card rate will be updated. When you activate Shopify Payments you will stop paying the subscription transaction fees listed at https://www.shopify.com/pricing. Likewise, if you're using Shopify Payments and switch to another payment processor, you will begin paying the subscription transaction fees to Shopify. These fees would be over and above the fees paid to your new third party payment processor.

The total fees for each payout and pending transaction will be displayed in the All payouts table. You can navigate there from the Dashboard and scroll down to click All payouts.

Note

When do I pay processing fees?

Traditionally, using any other payment gateway, you would pay your accumulated transaction fees every 30 days. With Shopify Payments the fees are deducted at the time the transaction is processed. If a refund is issued later on, we'll refund your fee as well.

To see the fee of any individual order, click to your Orders tab. Scroll down to the order history, where you can expand the transaction details by clicking here:

Scroll down again to see the details of the processing fee collected on that order (it's displayed in cents, not dollars):

Verify your identity

After you have made a significant number of sales using Shopify Payments, you'll need to verify your identity through the Payments page in your Shopify admin. You can verify your identity by submitting a government-issued photo ID or your SIN.

When you're required to submit a photo ID, you'll receive an email from Shopify and a notification will appear on the home page of your Shopify admin:

Note

If you are in the United Kingdom or Ireland and your store has multiple admin accounts, then you'll be asked to provide a photo ID for each person who has an admin account.

Until you verify your identity, you won't be able to use your Shopify Payments account. If the photo ID that you submit cannot be verified, then you'll need to resubmit it.

Note

You can submit a picture of your passport or your driver's license to verify your identity.

Click Submit.

After your photo ID is verified, you can use your Shopify Payments account again.

Update your tax details

You'll be asked to fill out your tax details when you set up Shopify Payments. All businesses will need to submit a tax ID.

Note

If you are a sole proprietor and don't have a tax ID, then you can submit your Social Insurance Number (SIN) or the last four digits of your Social Security Number (SSN) instead.

If the tax ID that you submit is not valid, then you'll have to update it. When you're required to update your tax details, you'll receive an email from Shopify and a notification will appear on the home page of your Shopify admin:

After your tax details are verified, you can use your Shopify Payments account again.

Tax reporting

As a merchant, you are required to abide by all applicable regulations, including tax reporting. Depending on your jurisdiction, Shopify Payments might also be required to report your sales to the local tax authorities.

The United States and Australia have unique tax reporting requirements. You can find the information you need below.

United States

In the U.S., all merchants who process more than $20,000 and have more than 200 transactions are required to submit a 1099-K form to the IRS. This form is generated by Shopify Payments and provided to both the merchant and the IRS on an annual basis.

Australia

In Australia, all merchants need to file the amount of GST paid on transaction fees with the government. To get this information, you can either download a generated invoice, or export a file with your transaction information.

Download a generated invoice

You can download monthly invoices to submit with your tax claim. Each invoice will include the total GST paid on transaction fees for all orders made in your store that month. This feature uses the UTC timezone, which might be different from your store's timezone. If you want a report that uses your store's timezone, then you can export a list of your store's transactions as a CSV file.

The invoice for each month will be generated on the 5th of the following month. For example, the invoice for June will be generated on July 5th. If you had no transactions with Shopify Payments for a certain month, then no invoice will be generated for that month.